


No Traveller

by dotfic



Category: DCU - Comicverse, GAIMAN Neil - Works
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-15
Updated: 2001-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's on the same side, part of what they do, but they fight her anyway. And she loves them for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Traveller

**Author's Note:**

> All characters copyright DC Comics or Neil Gaiman/Vertigo. Excerpt from "Contagion" by Chuck Dixon. Other situations/settings drawn from stories by the numerous bat-writers. Some of Oracle's dialogue suggested by Batya "the Toon" Wittenberg. Thanks for the edits, Liz. Written in the Summer of 2001.
> 
> * * *  
> 

"Wasn't that great? Did you see how he took down the bad guys even though he was outnumbered? And he didn't cheat and use guns like the bad guys, he used that whip and stra-strat-stragety..."

"_Strategy_, dear," the boy's mother said, giving him a fond downward glance as she walked, arm in arm, with her tall husband.

"Apparently he enjoyed it," said the boy's father wryly. "I suppose we'll hear of nothing else for weeks."

They continued down the alley. Behind them the crowd from the theater thinned. The night wind picked up a stray piece of newspaper and danced it along the pavement. In the distance, a faint rumble heralded the imminent passing of a train along the el overhead. The girders of the el closed around the three headed home, streetlamps making the girders into shadow stripes. Light, then shadow, light then shadow.

"And then he swung out, like this," the black-haired boy demonstrated, arms up to pantomime the action. He ran ahead a few steps, exhuberant. "And then --"

It was his mother's shocked intake of breath that made him pause, lower his skyward gaze. His father's quick, almost convulsive grip on his shoulder pulled him back.

There was someone standing in the shadows ahead of them, huddled into a tattered jacket, cap brim pulled low over the eyes. He looked grungy and worn, something of the darkest corners of the city itself, something hungry and desperate. In his hands a metal object gleamed.

It happened so quickly. His father pushed the boy backward, behind him, asking the stranger what he wanted. The stranger asked for money. His father obeyed, speaking in his deep, calm voice, that voice used to soothing the hurt, those in pain, maybe even those in desperation. It was going to be okay. The boy clenched his fists, wondering what his hero would do, wishing he could be a hero...this was a bad man. He should be stopped. And then the gloved hand reaching for his mother. For the pearls. His father shoved him to the ground, farther out of the way and grabbed the stranger. There was a scream. A retort like the backfire of a car. Pearls fell. A train roared and rattled overhead.

When it was over, there was the silence. And Her.

Slowly, the boy crawled forward to the two who lay so still in the pool of lamplight. Some dark and glistening fluid spread around them. He felt lumps of pearls under his knees. He touched the woman's shoulder and got no response. Her eyes stared blankly into nothingness. He tried his father.

"I'm sorry, no one's home anymore." A sigh came from behind him.

"What?" The boy looked up, expression blank and distant with shock.

A girl crouched near him. A pretty girl. She had black hair and very pale skin. She wore black pants, a nice blank tank top with spaghetti straps. She was thin and gaunt, but in a healthy, lean way. Her face was lovely and elven, with large eyes she had accentuated with delicate patterns using black makeup. She looked at him with sympathy radiating from her eyes.

"They're gone. See?" She gestured behind her, her attention all focused on the boy.

He looked. Behind the girl he saw his parents, standing and looking down in surprise.

"What do you mean, they're gone?" He said, voice rising, anger starting to crack the film of icy shock. "They're standing right behind you."

"Oh." The girl touched her mouth. "Er...it's rather confusing I guess. I forgot. Yes, they are. But it's not them. Not anymore. They have to leave. They have to come with me. See?" She pointed, slender arm outstretched.

On the pavement lay his parents in the pools of dark liquid.

"No." The boy got to his feet. "That doesn't make sense."

"So, what does?" The girl replied, rolling her eyes. She too got to her feet, but then bent at the waist to meet his eyes. "This is going to be hard for you. Which is why I wanted...I just wanted to talk to you before I took them."

"Mom? Dad?" The boy tried to run to them. He saw his mother jerk forward to meet him, his father open his mouth to speak.

"You can't," the girl said. She put out a hand against the boy's chest, stopping him in his tracks. "I really am so sorry," she said to the man and the woman. "It's time to go."

The woman buried her face in her hands. When she looked up, her cheeks were shining with tears. "I love you, Brucie. We have to go, but we'll be watching over you."

"Be brave, son," said his father. "Always do what's right. I'm going to miss you so much."

"No."

The girl gently touched his shoulder. "I told you it was going to be difficult. But you'll be okay. It seems unfair now, but you can't see the whole pattern at the beginning. This is just the first few skeins. I wish it hadn't happened like this." Her face puckered slightly, as if she might cry herself.

She turned and hooked her arms through his parents', as a niece or a daughter might. "Wait..." the woman said desperately, reaching her hand back to the boy.

The girl shook her head. "There's nothing to be done about it," she said in a kindly way, cocking her head to one side as she looked at the woman.

"No!" The boy yelled and ran after them. "No, don't take them, no..." He ran at them, ran at the girl, jumped on her from behind (and was vaguely surprised to find she had corporeal form). He pulled her hair. "Get away from them! You can't take them! You can't!"

"Bruce!" His father barked authoritatively. "Stop that this instant."

He could hardly see through the tears. The world became incoherent.

The girl pulled him off of her and set him down on the pavement. "Bruce." She knelt again and fixed him with a stare that reached into his belly. She sighed like an affectionate but much-harried babysitter with a difficult charge. "You _are_ going to be a trial, aren't you? Look, it's time for your parents to go. It's the way of things. I have to do what I have to do. Just like you're going to do what you're going to have to do. Like a job. Do you understand?"

"Please don't," he said, starting to sob. "Please...I hate you," he said to the girl in black, voice changing abruptly from pleading to rage. "I hate you." The fury welled up from inside him. He began to beat at her with his fists. She took his wrists as he struggled.

The boy stopped struggling and collapsed against the girl, sobbing. He beat his fists against her twice more, half-heartedly, tiredly. She wrapped her arms around him and held him.

Mrs. Wayne buried her face in her hands at the sound of her son's sobs. Mr. Wayne put an arm protectively around her, watching his son with pain in his eyes.

"Sh," she soothed. She glanced up at the parents. "We really do have to go now."

"I know you, don't I?" the man said suddenly.

The girl nodded, still hugging the sobbing boy. "Sure do. We've danced many times, you and I, Thomas Wayne. Sometimes I won, and sometimes you did. It was an interesting dance."

Gently, so gently, she pulled herself from the boy and got to her feet.

The three began to walk away.

The boy sank to his knees.

"I'll fight you," he whispered fiercely. "I swear I'll fight you. Always."

The girl glanced back over her shoulder and granted him a thousand-watt smile. "Good."

* * *

The big top tent, usually such a frantic, noisy, joyful place, was as silent as if the canvas were a shroud. Shocked spectators, who had come to be entertained and instead got a tragedy, filled the stands, faces pale and staring. Down in the ring, performers wept.

No one noticed the pretty girl all in black who approached the man and woman in the scarlet and green leotards. He was tall, with thick ebony hair and skin a pleasing light caramel color; she was fair. No one noticed as the girl approached them and spoke, then took each by the hand and led them away.

No one but the small boy, also in scarlet and green. He watched, confusion etched upon his features. Then realization dawned. He began to run. A stout performer called after him, but the boy didn't listen.

The trio were headed towards the tent wall. They reached the opening. The boy ran faster, mouth open in a shout to call them back...

He was too late. He too gained the entrance. Outside the night was quiet. There was no one there. In the distance lights flashed; the police were coming. A wind whipped around him, blowing circus leaflets. His fingers tightened around the canvas on either side of the opening. He clung, using the canvas to hold him up, leaning into the wind, drawing the cloth taut.

He was too late.

* * *  


Smoke hung the air with mortar dust. A girl dressed all in black came picking gingerly over the rubble towards him. She was delicately beautiful, even more so against the destruction around her. "Hi," she said cheerily, eyes crinkling at the corner, distorting the curling designs she had outlined in kohl.

"Um...hey." He blinked, confused. What had he been doing? Oh, yeah. He looked down at his costume. Oddly, there wasn't a mark on it. No rips, no tears, no blood, no dust.

The girl sat down on a bit of broken wall and crossed her legs. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "What a goddamned mess. He keeps me far too busy than what's natural. I'm tired of cleaning up after him." She looked up at him. "You didn't deserve this."

"Wait. What happened? I thought..." Something caught his eye, a patch of scarlet amid the rubble. He stepped closer, and froze. Understanding leapt to his face. "Oh my god," he said, breathing harder. He whirled to face her. "How is that possible?"

"So angry," she said sadly. One booted foot began to bob up and down. "Just like him. It's delightful, actually. You're so full of life, my angry young man. What a waste." She stopped fidgeting with her foot and instead kicked a stone. It bounced away and was lost.

She stood up. "Listen, can we get moving?"

"What if I won't go?" he said, raising his chin belligerently.

"You don't have a choice, kiddo."

"Don't..." the young man swallowed. "Don't I even get to say goodbye? I think he needs me. Needed me."

"No, the present tense would be correct. And no, you don't. Get to say goodbye." She gave a self-derisive shrug. "It's cowardly of me, I know. I'd like to be gone when _he_ finds you. You see...he's actually rather a favorite of mine. But he hates me. And now...he's going to like me even less."

* * *

She frowned to herself as she walked the hospital corridor. "Always that lunatic," she muttered. "Something has to be done." She paused to look at the numbers on the wall. "Let's see..I can stop by her, wait a bit...then I gotta go collect Mrs. Threnady on the sixth floor, and Mr. Bearing on the eighth..."

Reaching her destination, she didn't bother to knock, but opened the door.

Immediately hands grabbed her by her upper arms and pushed her against the wall.

"Hey!" She said irritably, and looked up into a pair of angry blue eyes.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The owner of the blue eyes demanded, voice low.

"Just visiting, all right? Calm down."

Reluctantly, he let go of her. She regarded him. He was a few inches taller than she, with thick black hair and a lithe, muscular body. He was dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket. About eighteen or nineteen years old maybe. She smiled.

"You've grown," she said, "since the last time I saw you."

"Huh?" he said, stupidly. He looked at her more closely. The blue eyes narrowed. "Do I...know...you..."

She started to step past him, to go look in on one of her evening's responsibilities, but he neatly stepped into her path. "Ah-ah," he said. "Not until you tell me what you're doing here."

She cocked her head to one side. "Actually, I wanted to ask you the same thing."

He looked down at the linoleum. "I'm visiting a friend who got hurt. We uh...haven't been that close lately, but...look, who are you? Tell me or I'll kick you out on your..."

"Easy, boy wonder," she said.

He tensed.

"Relax, hon," she said sweetly, and laughed. "Who would I tell? You still don't remember me, do you."

She could see it in his face, as his memory raced backwards, recapturing a moment he'd always thought he'd dreamed. He stepped away from her, almost staggering. "You. I saw you. You took my parents away after they..." he rubbed his face with his hands, tanned skin growing pale. "You're not here for..." his glance went to the hospital room door.

"That's what I'm not sure about," she said, and fetchingly caught her lower lip between her teeth. "You see, some of them are ready. It's a done deal. It's over. Others...walk the line. I keep an eye on them, hang around, in case I'm needed."

"This can't be real," he said, shaking his head. "You can't be."

"Why not? Why can't I be real? You were expecting maybe a tall guy with no skin holding a farming implement?"

"So you are here for Barbara."

"Like I said," she said, shrugging delicate shoulders. "Too soon to call."

"Listen," he said, voice growing rapid with his fear. "She's not gonna cross the line, okay? She's not gonna die." His voice wavered.

"Tell her that," the girl said. "She's on the edge. She's not ever going to walk again. Some part of her already knows this. And that part of her wants to die."

"That's ridiculous!" He shouted, and then, at the look she gave him, he calmed his voice. "It's not like her. She wouldn't give up. She's really smart, you know? And how do you know she won't walk again? You don't understand, if she doesn't...you don't know who she is..."

She girl nodded. "You're wrong. I do understand. I know all about her. As do you. Which is why you should see why she's walking the thin line."

He turned away from her, then fisted his hand against the wall and put his forehead against his fist. "I want to help her," he said, voice muffled. "She's my friend."

Fingers lightly touched his shoulder and he looked up into a pair of kind, dark eyes, faintly smiling. "Tell her that," she said, "and then maybe I go away and don't come back for a good long time."

The young man stared at her a moment, then wrenched away. He quietly opened the hospital room door, stepped inside, and shut it behind him.

The girl in black leaned her back against the wall. Folding her arms, she bent one knee and leaned the sole of her boot against the wall as well. She waited for a little while; then, as the clock on the wall crept its hands around, she left to collect Mrs. Threnady.

  
* * *

The man sat, exhausted, in the metal chair, head bowed in his hands. Nearby in the cave a dark-haired figure lay still, the life-signs monitor beeping steadily. His leg was wrapped, his neck in a brace. IV tubes ran from his lifeless arms.

"I would suggest a game of chess, but you look too tired, Alfred," a voice spoke from the shadows, tinged with amusement.

He wearily raised his head. "Oh, it's you."

"It's me." She hopped up on an unused metal table, legs dangling down. "You almost lost him."

"But I didn't." The elderly man ran his fingers through his gray hair and then smiled faintly. "Chess. Very funny."

"Old joke," she said. Then she sobered. "I expect we will meet again soon."

"For me?" he said, with what might possibly have been hope.

"Silly Alfred." She hopped off the table and kissed him on the cheek. "Not for a long while yet. And what I said just now--about losing. That isn't strictly accurate. It's not about winning and losing..."

"It just is," he finished for her. "Yes, young lady, I know."

"Just doing my job," she said, shrugging.

* * *

_Alfred? Are the lights off?_

_No, young sir. I thought it best to bandage your eyes._

_Oh..._

In a far corner of the cave, hidden within the shadows, the brother and sister stood, watching and listening.

BEEP...BEEP...BEEP...

The heartbeat was steady. The boy would live.

"Are you done with him now, brother?" she glanced sideways at his gaunt, tall form.

He looked down at her. "He wasn't yours to take this time."

"No, he was yours." She paused. "They're so gallant," she said wistfully. "I mean, this...family...in particular."

"You take a special interest in them," said her brother, curious, faintly disapproving.

"And you don't? They help restore the balance that others upset, like that disgusting clown. It gets exhausting, having to take more than what's natural." She folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "Like that time a few years back...entire _worlds_. And the ones who fought against me the most just dropping like flies. It was nuts. I was a wreck."

"Ah, yes. Destruction had a field day with that."

The girl's glance went back to the elderly man seated in the chair, and the boy lying curled up in the bed, tubes hanging from his body like threads holding him to life. Which they were.

She lifted a hand, and blew the old man a kiss.

  
* * *

The com screen blinked to life and the red-haired woman lifted her head blearily from the countertop. There was a crease on her cheek from the edge of the counter.

"Wha--"

"Oracle." A cowled figure appeared in the video window on the computer screen. "Nightwing hasn't reported in. I sent him on a mission to Blackgate. I need to know if he was successful."

That jolted the sleepiness from her. "Oh you do, do you?" She said slowly. She reached for her glasses and put them on. The hazy cowled figure sharpened. "Well, as a matter of fact, I have heard from him." Her voice was cold. "As a matter of fact, he's here now."

"He is? Let me speak to him," he said abruptly. "I need to know if Blackgate's..."

"Sure! Just give me a few minutes to wake him out of the coma-like sleep he's in. You want to know how he is? Let's see..." She began to tick items off on her fingers. "Several broken ribs, dehydration, a fever of 104.2, various bruises and contusions, he's just fine! And how are you!"

There was a shocked silence. The face on the screen blinked. "He...is he okay?" He asked stupidly.

Barbara relented, surprised by the sudden concern in his voice. "For the moment, yeah. I got the fever down a bit."

"I could send Alfred..."

"I've got it covered. Really."

"I should come over..."

"He's asleep, Bruce. Come tomorrow. Call first."

"Maybe I should..."

"Bruce?" Barbara interrupted. "It's okay. I'm taking care of him." She paused, then leaned closer to the monitor. "He's not going to die."

"Call me if anything changes," Batman said. "Call me. I...tell him..."

Barbara blinked back the sudden sting of tears.

"Yeah. I'll call. Don't worry, he'll be okay."

The screen went black, with the words TRANSMISSION ENDED.

"It's easy to forget, isn't it? That's with him it's all a facade. That he can be hurt too."

Barbara spun her wheelchair, hands already pulling out her escrima sticks. "How did you get in here?" She frowned, puzzled, when she saw the delicate-boned, black haired girl standing a few yards away, stance as casual as if she'd been there waiting for hours. She wore a large black hat that somehow accentuated her face instead of overshadowing it. "Do I...know you?"

"No," the girl said. "Not personally. I know you, though."

"How did you get past my proximity alarms? The locks? The booby-traps?" Barbara kept a tight hold on her escrima sticks, warily watching the intruder.

"Oh, those." The girl waved a hand. "Interesting. He was right. You are smart." She turned and sauntered out of the computer room, headed down the hallway.

Instantly, Barbara was after her. With a powerful hand she propelled her wheelchair forward. "Where do you think _you're_ going?"

"Checking in on my patient."

"_Your_ patient?" Oracle's voice rose.

The strange girl stopped outside the bedroom. "Hush, chicka. I'm not going to hurt him. I'm just waiting."

"Waiting? For what?"

"To see which way he's going to go. It's not like I don't have anywhere else to be, but I keep an eye on the ones who are on the edge."

"On the...hey! You can't go in there!" Barbara's chair whizzed forward as the girl entered the room. "Stay away from him!" She placed herself between the girl and the dark-haired man who lay unconscious in the bed, IV wires trailing from his arm.

The girl smiled at her sadly, sympathetically. "Okay." She raised her hands. "See? I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Then _what do you want_?"

She made a little puff of air through her lips, blowing stray hair from her eyes. "I already told you. Just checking in. Waiting to see. Which way he goes."

"Which way..."

"If he'll live or die," the girl said, shrugging.

Barbara's mouth dropped open slightly. Then she recovered. Her shoulders twitched and her back straightened. "He's not going to die."

"Hmmmm." The girl gracefully stepped past Oracle's wheelchair and bent over the man in the bed. His chest rose and fell steadily. His eyes looked sunken.

Framed by the light streaming in from the hallway, Barbara inched the wheelchair forward a few inches, then stopped. She watched the girl and the man. Slow understanding dawned in her green eyes. She'd seen it, the shadow the girl cast over Dick. Suddenly, she understood.

"You. Are not. Taking. Him." Her voice was low, tight, and determined.

The girl glanced up. "Not much I have to say in the matter. I just do my job."

"He's not going to die. I got his fever down. He'll be okay. He's not going to die..." her voice wavered. "He's not going to die." She began to cry.

The girl smiled down at the sleeping man. She brushed the dark hair back from his forehead. "Maybe not. Not tonight, at least." Crossing the room, she took a tissue from a box on the night table. "Here," she said, handing it to Barbara.

Barbara wiped her eyes, then balled the tissue inside one sweaty palm.

"Don't look at me like that," the girl in black said, with a touch of amusement. "Such a glare! But then, you're all like that. Bruce most of all." She sighed. "He doesn't understand that I can be kind as well as cruel. Because he hates me." She settled onto the rug and sat cross-legged before the woman in the wheelchair. "I keep coming back to all of you. Some more than once. I've seen that one before," she said, nodding towards the bed. "The first time I came for his parents. Before this I came for him a few times, once when he was just a child but Alfred put a stop to that." She leaned one elbow on her knee and put her chin in her hands. "You all hate me so fiercely, you all deny me, and fight against me, and yet you keep entering my domain. Except Alfred. Alfred and I have an understanding. He knows my place in the scheme of things. He doesn't rage and he doesn't yell and he doesn't curse at me and he doesn't tempt the abyss but when it comes, and when I come, he fights me." She shook her head. "He gets it a little, I think."

"Gets what?" Barbara said softly.

"That we're on the same side. That I'm a part of what you all do. Part of the dance. I'm not the enemy, I just clean up after the enemy. A lot of the time, I'm just cleaning up after nature, the way things are. But there are some who upsets the balance. Like the one who did that to you," she said pointing at the wheelchair with her free hand.

"I don't ever want to see you again," Barbara said.

"You know that's impossible." The girl yawned, stretching her arms towards the ceiling, then uncurled herself with cat-like grace and got to her feet. "I'll be going, then. He's back from the edge now, he won't be coming with me. Take good care of him."

The girl walked to the door, her shadow long and thin across the rug, stopping just short of the foot of the bed.

After a moment, Barbara wheeled forward and peered out into the hallway. But it was empty, the clocktower silent, as if no one had ever been there at all.

* * *


End file.
